Fused Genes
by jambled
Summary: When she woke up with his hand over her stomach she’d feel a flash of guilt. Half his DNA. Genes that had successfully fused. Proof that she could do it if she wanted to. If she wanted to. And therein was the problem.
1. Chapter 1

"I'm trying to get it. I'm honestly trying. But if you're so adamant, why did you tell me?" She was the most beautiful woman he'd seen. Despite the fact that she continued telling him what he didn't want to hear, he still wanted to hear her voice because it was coming from her mouth. And he loved her mouth.

"You had a right to know."

"So you just thought you'd tell me and that was the end of it?"

"Of course not." He knew she had. She was a bad liar and avoided his eyes every time she wasn't being truthful. This time it was because she was making a pretence of having trouble opening the door. He opened his and got out.

"What are you doing?" She was finally out and he grabbed her hand, walking her towards the building.

"You tell me something like that and then expect me to drop you off at work as if nothing happened?" Her eyes were wide but her steps didn't falter. Her eyes looked almost green today. He'd noticed that when it was overcast the blue in her eyes began to fade as if it, too, was tired of the endless rain and just wished for sunlight. The weather was fine today, though.

"I suppose you're feeling upset. I probably shouldn't have told you. I think you've been hinting that you would rather not know. But I'm not so good at picking up on hints." Her truthfulness about her own shortcomings always amazed him. He'd never met a woman who could so completely present herself to the world as a problematic equation. But she wasn't like any other woman he'd been with.

"I think I'm more upset that you've made your mind up without me. I'm half of this, all the way." He reluctantly dropped her hand to let her search for her ID card and swipe it to let them into the workstation. She sighed and he wrapped an arm around her waist. Even now, in the middle of this, he craved her closeness.

"You thought I'd cut and run."

"I don't know what that means." They headed for her office and she dropped her bag on the floor, letting his arm remain around her. He found it surreal that, despite the nature of their conversation, he still wanted to be closer to her. Even more surprising was that she was letting him.

"You thought I'd just leave, didn't you? Then you could do exactly what you wanted."

"I didn't want you to leave." Her arms wrapped around him, the embrace suddenly fierce. Even after the few weeks they'd been together he was still surprised at how quietly passionate she could be. The first time they'd slept together he'd been amazed at the wildcat prepared to unfurl from her buttoned down personality.

"Then what do you want? Us to stop acknowledging the elephant in the room?"

"I don't know-."

"It means stop talking about it, thinking about it. Step around the problem and try to pretend things are the same as they always were."

"I just wanted it to be easier than this." He pulled back to look at her face. Her hair was out this morning. She'd forgotten to put lipgloss on and he felt the sudden urge to kiss her bare lips. She let him dart his tongue across his teeth before she pulled away. He dropped his arm to her hand and let their fingers link. She drove him crazy; intellectually, physically. But he didn't know whether she was driving him away with this.

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Sully was in her office, again. Booth had noticed it happening more and more. Where she'd once so fiercely segregated her private life and her working life, cracks were beginning to appear between, leakages taking place. Blissfully, she'd stopped unwittingly torturing him with conversation about her and Sully's sex life. In fact, she was being remarkably restrained for someone who thought a discussion about another man's hips and thighs was the kind of thing to bring up at breakfast. She hadn't been talking much at all. He'd noticed it for the past week but hadn't gotten around to asking Angela if she knew what was wrong. He'd imagined things might not be going so well with Sully but the lingering kiss she was sharing with Sully dissuaded Booth of the idea that they might be cooling things off. Straightening his tie and waiting a moment until they finally broke apart, Booth walked into Brennan's office. The linked hands she and Sully had shared were reluctantly dropped.

"Hey, Booth." Sully's greeting was quiet, his tone subdued. Booth nodded towards him.

"We have to talk tonight." Sully's hand moved slowly down Brennan's cheekbone and Booth looked away, not wanting to play third wheel to their moment.

"I know." He left at Brennan's words and she sank into her chair, sighing.

"Trouble in paradise?" Booth asked. She shrugged, looked at the emptiness of her desk.

"It's… Something," she shook her head, changed her mind, "nothing. Do we have a case?" Her tone broached no argument over her change of subject and he decided to go along with it. She'd tell him eventually; a long car ride when there was nothing to talk about or a late night at Wong Fu's. He just had to wait her out.

"Yeah. We do."

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She'd looked out the window the entire car ride to the victim's parents' house without saying much at all. He decided that she was working up to tell him but after an unsuccessful interview the car ride back to the lab was just as quiet.

"Something on your mind, Bones?" He broached the subject without looking over to her but in his peripheral vision he saw her shift, lift a hand from where it was resting on her stomach to brush back some hair that had fallen into her eyes.

"Yes. How can someone's parents just… I mean their daughter is dead and they sat there drinking tea and looking blank. What happened to emotion? Aren't you meant to feel something when your child is found dead?" He waited for her to say more but she fell quiet again and returned to perusing the darkening scenery. He'd expected something anthropological to follow, some kind of rationalisation. Not another bout of silence.

"Anything else on your mind?" She straightened up as the Jeffersonian came into view, apparently ignoring his question. This was something new. Even if he asked a question she didn't like, she'd always answer.

"Booth, this…" Finally she met his eyes as he pulled the car to a stop. It was the first time in an entire car trip that she hadn't made him look at her while she spoke, despite the fact that he was driving and technically should have all his attention on the road. He saw the unshed tears and wondered if it was all because of the ambivalence of the dead girl's parents or whether there was more to it.

"This is something you can't help me with." Her words told him there was more, but that she wasn't going to give it up easily.

"I could try. I mean we're partners, right?" She slung her bag over her shoulder and looked at her watch.

"I have to meet Sully. There wasn't anything else you needed me to get done tonight was there?" He shook his head and she stopped on the sidewalk near a streetlight, turned to face him. Her face was half in darkness but her hair was lit by the glow coming from above.

"Some things you can't fix." Her smile was sedately sad, small enough so that he nearly missed it excepting that it was her face he saw more than anyone else's and he knew every nuance of it by now. Though he saw the smile that was meant to convince him to drop the matter, he also saw her eyes, lit by the half light enough so that the tears showed.

"Temperance, I want to help…" He took a step closer to her and she let their closeness linger for an instant before she stepped away from him.

"I'll see you tomorrow." The she was walking past the streetlight and away.

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When she woke up with his hand over her stomach she'd feel a flash of guilt. Half his DNA. Genes that had successfully fused. Proof that she could do it if she wanted to. _If she wanted to._ And therein was the problem.

_A/N: Hope you liked. I love the Sully/Bren dynamic (not least of all because it brings out the green eyed monster in Booth). Please review!_


	2. Chapter 2

She'd always called her her best friend in the whole world. Of course, having a friend who was lacking in girly traits always proved difficult. Heart to hearts were hard to hold and questions about her life were fielded far too much. But when her best friend showed up on Thursday morning looking pale and drinking tea that smelt like it wasn't safe for human consumption, it lent itself to girl talk.

"You look like crap." A look passed between them. One smiled. One didn't. The unsmiling one answered.

"I was wondering… Can I ask you a hypothetical question?" A shrug continued the line of questioning.

"If there was a woman who absolutely doesn't want children but found herself pregnant to a man who actually, surprisingly, wanted children with her despite the fact that it was a completely unexpected event… Who has right of way?"

"You sound like you're talking about entering a roundabout, Bren. I think you mean who ultimately decides what happens to the child."

"Foetus." Angela clapped a hand to her mouth as she was corrected, but removed it in time to utter her next words.

"No shit." She said. Brennan's eyebrows drew together and she took a sip out of her tea as she misunderstood Angela's sudden exclamation of realisation.

"You referred to it as a child. Technically it's not a child until it's left the womb. Until then it's a foetus."

"You and Sully! You!" Angela pointed right at the stomach of her friend and looked incredulous.

"It was hypothetical, Ang. A situation I was giving you to reason with and pass back as a considered hypothesis. Not a real life situation."

"What are you drinking?" Angela asked suspiciously, her nose quivering near Brennan's cup.

"Ginger tea with some extra herbs."

"No _way_ Brennan!"

"I bought it from the greengrocer at the end of my block-."

"I believe it's ginger tea, Bren. But you're drinking it because you know it's good for morning sickness." Angela sank onto her couch next to Brennan and leant her head back.

"This is huge. What are you going to do?" There was a pause between them.

"I don't know." Brennan finished her tea and leant forward to throw the paper cup in the bin.

"So from your 'hypothetical situation'," Angela made quote marks in the air as she sat on the edge of the couch, turning further towards Brennan, "I can assume you told Sully and that he wants this… Foetus."

"It sounded like he was hinting that he didn't want to be told but… I had to tell him. And yes, he wants it."

"How did he take it?"

"What?"

"Well when you told him did he put his head in his hands? Cry? Laugh? Jump around the room? Start a shopping list for booties and bibs and everything baby?" Brennan half shrugged.

"He smiled. Hugged me. Told me it was the best news he's ever heard."

"Then what?"

"I told him we wouldn't be keeping it." Angela's mouth dropped and she looked horrified.

"It was a little insensitive, wasn't it?" Brennan twisted her hands over her abdomen and nodded to herself. Angela moved her hand over to stop the twisting movement.

"Bren you have to remember he didn't have time to think it through like you did. You gave him what he thought was great news and then you took it away from him."

"But that's what I decided. I've never wanted children, Ang. So Sully and I never talked about it. We've only been seeing each other for a few months. I thought he'd understand." Brennan let one of her hands link with Angela's, fall onto the couch between them. The other hand she kept on her stomach.

"Why did you tell him?"

"Why didn't I just go get rid of it and pretend it never happened?" Angela watched as her best friend bit her lip and looked agonized.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time. You can't tell anyone, Ang. Only Sully knows."

"You haven't told Booth?" Brennan looked slightly alarmed that Angela sounded surprised.

"No…" Her face turned passive as she continued, "if I don't keep it… He's wanted Parker through everything that went on with him and Rebecca." She shook her head slowly as Angela finally understood; Bren didn't want Booth to look at her as someone who would abort her own child.

"You never answered my question, Ang. What should I do?" Her best friend's tone was slightly pleading and Angela shook her head, placed her free hand over the one on Brennan's stomach.

"Sweetie, I can't tell you… I wish I could give you some kind of easy solution, but nothing is that easy. Nothing like this should be easy. You need to talk to Sully. Really talk to him. Ask yourself why you don't want children and tell him your answer. And, Bren? Try not to be…" Angela shook her head and tried to find a way to say it inoffensively.

"Just be as sensitive as you can be." There was a sudden knock on the door and, startled, Angela let her hands drop.

"There you are. We've got to…" Booth looked between the two women on the couch and found his words faltering.

"Got to what?" In an instant she was back to professional and he had to ask himself whether he'd imagined the sadness on her face.

"We were going to interview the girl's brother." At the look on his partner's face, Booth shook his head.

"Don't tell me you forgot." She shrugged defensively.

"Of course not. I just don't see why you need me. I'm much more useful back here examining the bones. All he's going to tell us is that he doesn't know anything. He hasn't seen her for years; any of his family."

"So just because he's estranged you think he's-." She cut him off mid-sentence as she stood.

"Fine, Booth, I'll come. Let's go."

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The unsuccessful interview with the brother had proved Bones right, but she wasn't gloating the way she usually did. He'd expected an 'I told you so' to be uttered in the car ride back, an 'the brother wasn't helpful at all, Booth' as they walked into the lab after lunch or at least a 'why did you make me go to the interview when I could've had the bones examined and the evidence waiting for you' when he reappeared to see her leaning over the table, blue lab coat snugly buttoned.

"You were right." He said finally, wondering if that was what she'd been waiting for.

"Hmm." She was alternately picking up ribs and writing on a clipboard, concentration evident in her expression. This was where he'd left her when he'd gone back to his office for a few hours to make calls, search old records, try to move the case forward. It didn't look like she'd moved away from the table.

"About the brother." Her look flickered up, eyes blank.

"What? Zack, could you put this in the database, run an overnight search on similar injuries." She finished writing, handed the clipboard to Zack. Booth waited until her attention was back on the bones.

"He didn't help much." She shrugged, looked at her watch as she peeled off the gloves.

"You didn't know that. I've got the file for you." Booth watched her dubiously as she walked to an adjacent table and picked up a manila folder. He missed the gloating.

"We won't have the results Zack's running until tomorrow. There's nothing else we can do tonight." She was already unbuttoning her lab coat and Booth flipped through the folder quickly.

"You meeting Sully?" Absorbed in the sketches Angela had included in the file, Booth almost missed Bones and caught up to her as she walked down the stairs, almost bumping into her as she stopped abruptly.

"Guess so." He followed her gaze to the entrance, where Sully leant against the glass door, hands in his pockets, his side to them. Booth flicked a look back to Bones. Her face was so transparent to him; he knew every expression that flitted across her features and right now he could see the same sadness that had been so clear in the half light of the night before. Along with it, a weary resignation set her mouth in an emotionless line. Wanting to say something but unable to form the words that would ask her, again, if she needed his help. He knew, too, in staying silent that he was keeping himself safe from the same quiet rebuke that had met him last time he'd asked.

"Hey, Bren." Angela was sitting in Bones' office, but rose as they walked in. She flicked a quick look to Booth and he sensed she wanted him to leave. The only consent he made was to stop at the doorway, watching Bones' hang her coat and gather her things.

"I see he's waiting." Angela said. Bones nodded, picked up her bag. Booth noticed the bags under her eyes seemed to have deepened since she left the skeleton on the lab table.

"I'm talking to Sully tonight."

"Whatever you choose Bren, I'm with you."

"Thanks, Ang." There was a brief hug between them and Booth envied Angela her inside knowledge. Obviously Bones had confided in her.

"See you tomorrow." Bones' passing comment was directed at both him and Angela. Booth tried his charm smile as she passed but the only response he elicited was another blank stare.

"Ang!" Hodgins' call came as he walked down the hallway. Angela passed Booth to join Jack. As she passed him, Angela's glance to Booth was quick and guarded and slid off him before he could categorise it. Then she was gone before Booth could ask her anything.

He stayed leaning on the doorway a moment longer. He knew it now for sure; something was going on with Bones and Sully. Whatever it was, he was going to find out.

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She knew the dates. She only had a week to convince him her decision was the most reasonable. And failing that, she'd resort to booking herself into a hospital and hoping that he wouldn't hate her in the morning.

Because as much as she could live with an empty womb, she wasn't sure she could live without the now familiar light breathing coming from the other side of her bed.

_Thanks for the reviews so far. I really appreciate it. Let me know what you think of this chapter… Any wishes for the fic future of our favourite characters? _

_And (self promotion coming up…) if you liked this, please have a look at some of my other fics. Cheers._


	3. Chapter 3

He'd been gone when she woke up, but his side of the bed was still warm. A note in the kitchen told her he'd gone to retrieve the best breakfast she would eat.

By the time he got back she was showered and dressed for the day. She could only handle a bite of the eggs in syrup he'd bought without it threatening to come back up, but she did agree with him about the quality of it. But at the moment, that's all they were agreeing on.

"I just don't understand why you can't even consider, just for a minute, keeping it." His hands were holding hers across the table, and she looked at their knotted fingers, avoiding his eyes.

"Bringing a child into a world like this… It doesn't make sense. And we're not even…"

"What, married? We're in a lasting relationship; at least I thought I was. And I know how you feel about marriage, so I wasn't even going to ask. But, Tempe, this is our child. Ours. We created life together."

"It's simply a sperm making it to the ova in a biological-." His hand clenched over hers before she could continue.

"Can't you just forget science for a minute. Think about this in terms of life."

"Life is made up of science, Sully." Her tone was colder than she'd meant, and she saw him flinch.

"Christ, Tempe." He let go of her hands, pushing them away and she kept her eyes downcast.

"Would you leave?" She finally looked up at him, wanting the answer to the question that had been taunting her since they'd started dating. But now an affirmative threatened.

"What?"

"Would you leave if I… If I got rid of it." Sully sighed and leant back in his chair.

"I don't know, Tempe. I just don't know."

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"Morning, Bones." Booth walked into her office, which was blissfully Sully-free and recoiled at the smell of her beverage.

"What the hell are you drinking? It smells like-."

"Herbal tea. I gave it to her. Great for… You know, women's problems." Angela had followed him through the doorway, a sheet of paper in her hands.

"Oh. Right." Booth looked between Angela and Bones and couldn't think of anything else to say.

"Zack wanted me to give you this. It's the results from that injury thing he ran last night."

"Thanks, Ang." Booth waited as Bones took the paper, read through it carefully. She had another sip of tea and grimaced.

"You know, you can probably get some nurofen or something." At Angela's sceptical look, Booth shrugged defensively.

"I've had lasting relationships. I know… Women." Angela rolled her eyes and folded her arms as she walked out.

"So, what does it say? And I'm yet to hear a 'good morning, Booth.'" Booth sat in a chair, propping an ankle on his knee. Bones still wasn't herself, and it wasn't just the fact that the smell surrounding her was from her tea and wasn't the usual mix of fresh soap and night jasmine.

"There was an attack that was similar to this in a juvenile detention centre about ten years ago. Some differences, probably only due to circumstance…"

"Not many weapons of choice available in that kind of setting." Booth agreed, taking the paper as Bones handed it over. As usual, he scanned the statistics and ignored all the words he couldn't understand. Which left him with the date of the attack and the institution at which it happened.

"You okay?" Booth had debated with himself last night and come to the decision that he'd go straight to the horse's mouth, as it were. And he'd keep asking until it gave him an answer. And right now it was draining the last of the sour smelling tea and throwing the cup away.

"What do you mean?" She was pulling her hair back, tying it in a loose knot. Her eyes didn't meet his.

"Something's going on with you, Bones. Is it Sully? Is he… Is everything okay between the two of you." She avoided him for another few moments as she shrugged into her lab coat, took longer than usual to button it.

"I thought you didn't want to hear about it. You don't like talking about your relationships." Booth sighed to himself. Of course she'd be able to out rationalise him with a single sentence.

"I just want to know that you're okay." Her eyes finally met his as he stood, grasped her elbow. They were still lidded by the sadness that was becoming too familiar to him.

"I will be." He nodded, still not convinced. There was a pause between them until he reluctantly let go of her.

"I'm going to go get these juvie files unlocked. It might take me a while if I have to get a judge in for it. Let me know if you find anything else on the bones."

"Sure." She ghosted him a smile as he left, but called his name as he stepped out of her office.

"Hey, Booth." He turned around and her smile widened a little, though not enough to make her look happy.

"Good morning." He nodded at her and tapped the file against the doorway once before continuing his exit.

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"Bones, it's me. The attack in juvenile detention? It was the brother." Her silence prompted him to continue.

"The alibi he gave us for that night is in question as well."

"Pick me up outside?" She asked. Booth could imagine her unbuttoning her lab coat already.

"Five minutes." He said before flipping his phone shut. Leaning forward and switching on the bubble light, he reasoned with himself that it was necessary. He needed to get to the Jeffersonian in five minutes.

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She was waiting outside when he pulled the SUV in, cutting the light and sirens. Unusually, she didn't comment on him driving like a maniac. No snide remarks met his ears when he cut a corner short and left a few tires spinning aimlessly in the air.

"So the brother was locked up for drug possession." She'd picked the file up from the dash in front of them and was looking at it intently, ignoring the scenery speeding by her window.

"Yeah. And that's not the only thing he omitted to tell us when we interviewed him. He hadn't spoken to his sister in years, yet he took out a life insurance policy on her. And his alibi… When I spoke to them again, the entire roomful of people remembered a gap of time when he disappeared."

"A large enough gap?"

"At least an hour and a half to get to his sister, murder her, then dump the body."

"Doesn't say much about families." She flipped the file shut and, at the comment, Booth looked over to see her hand resting on her stomach, face turned from him. In that moment, the truck that was in front of them slammed on its brakes to avoid running up the back of a green Volvo which had stopped for a dog crossing the road. When Booth looked back to the road, he only had enough time to hit the brakes himself and steer hard to the left, hoping the subsequent spin would save the front of the SUV from direct contact.

He was wrong.


	4. Chapter 4

"I need to know if you're pregnant. Ma'am… Look at me." The paramedic was leaning over her, blue gloved hands reaching down to touch tender areas, drawing hisses of pain from Brennan.

"Booth?" She managed to get through clenched teeth. She wasn't entirely sure what had happened, but if she was in pain, there was a chance Booth was as well.

"The man you were travelling with is on his way to the hospital. You were a little harder to get out of the car. Now, are you pregnant?" Brennan fought through another wave of pain, her back arching. Her insides felt like they were being ripped out.

"BPs dropped, we need to get her on the way now. By the look of the pelvis, if she was pregnant, she's not anymore." Another paramedic came into view, his young face concerned. His words faded in and out, as if he was varying his speech pattern. She tried to shake her head, clear the fog that was engulfing her mind, but was immobilised by the spine board.

"I'm going to give it to her anyway. She's not clotting."

"Her pulse is spiking. Let's get her in the van."

"I'm giving her 5mls. Write it down."

"BPs dropped again, we need to go now."

"Code 2 all the way."

Their voices wafted around her, losing their urgency as they passed into her mind. She was fighting to hold onto the little circle in her vision that wasn't black.

"We're losing her, step on it!"

The circle got smaller, and smaller still. And then it wasn't there at all.

_xXx xXx xXx_

"I have some news." Cam's face was unusually serious; scarily serious. Angela, Hodgins and Zach were all standing around the body, finishing up their notes together.

"What?" Angela was the first to speak, a hand to her mouth, already expecting the worst.

"There was a car accident. Booth and Dr Brennan, on their way to the arrest. They hit a truck."

"Oh, god. Are they…"

"They both got transferred to the hospital. Booth is in a serious condition, but Dr Brennan is critical."

"Jack, you're driving." Angela ran down the steps of the platform, with Jack close behind her.

"Zach, move it." Hodgins yelled. Zach looked indecisive, his pad of notes still in his hand.

"You go. I'll make sure the remains are secure and follow you to the hospital." Cam said. Zach nodded and followed the other two. Cam shut her eyes for a moment, shook her head. Booth would be fine. He always came through things. And Dr Brennan… It would take more than a car crash to take down a woman like that.

_xXx xXx xXx_

"Sully!" Angela saw him first, milling around outside emergency, waiting for someone to tell him something. He'd tried being nice, he'd tried threatening them and he'd tried pulling out his FBI badge. But they weren't telling him anything.

"They're not telling..." His eyes squeezed shut for a moment as Angela put her hand on his arm.

"They won't tell me anything. About Tempe. If she's…"

"We're at the hospital, not the morgue." Zach's voice was level as he spoke, trailing off as three sets of eyes glared at him.

"Yeah, way to go, Zach. That really makes people feel better." Hodgins put an arm around Angela.

"I was merely stating-."

"Zach, if you don't be quiet… I swear…" Zach backed away from Angela warily.

"I'm going to ask again." Sully turned away from them and walked to the desk. Angela sagged back against Hodgins.

"Brennan, Jack." Her words carried enough emotion for both of them, and he linked his hands around her.

"I know, babe."

"They're still working on her… But Booth, we can see Booth." Sully came back, his hands running through his hair distractedly.

"Where is he?" Angela asked.

"ICU. Through the doors and down the corridor."

"I'll tell Zach to wait here for Cam."

"No, Ange, I'll wait. You guys go… I'll wait for news on Tempe." Sully nodded at them as Hodgins motioned to Zach.

"You send someone for me if you hear anything." Angela's tone was fierce and Sully nodded again. He stopped long enough to see them disappear through the doors before he took a deep breath and resumed pacing. He needed to keep moving, keep his body occupied in the hope it would lift from his mind the simple thought that not only might his child have died, but so could've the mother who'd, so briefly and against her will, held it.

_xXx xXx xXx_

"Oh." Angela's soft exclamation prompted them all to stop at the glass windows that looked onto Booth's room. He still dwarfed the bed but the power he usually held when standing wasn't evident when he was so pale and still, lying in a blue gown on white sheets. One side of his face was already turning cerulean, angry blue on tanned skin.

"But if he looks like this… Brennan." Angela's hand started for the glass before dropping weakly to her side.

"It might have hit his side of the car, not hers." Angela shook her head as a nurse came along.

"Only two at a time in the room, please. He's stable but we're not moving him from ICU until we're sure he's going to stay that way." She swept ahead of them into the room and checked the myriad of devices that huddled around Booth's bed.

"I'm going… There's probably something to do at the lab." Zach took a step backwards.

"Dude, you are _not_ going home right now. You're going to sit in the waiting room with Sully in case he needs anything. But you are not leaving this hospital until we know that Dr Brennan is going to be okay. That Booth is going to be okay. Okay?" It was Jack's turn to be fierce, and Zach nodded before turning away.

"Booth?" Angela was already at his bedside, one hand on his wrist as if she was seeking out a pulse to convince herself, despite the heart monitor beeping softly from the other side of the bed.

"His pulse has been strengthening and his temperature has come down." The nurse looked suspicious for a moment.

"Are you family?" Angela thought about it briefly, nodded. The nurse resumed her brisk duties. When she left, the room was still.

"Did you just lie to a nurse?" Jack smiled across the bed, but his smile couldn't clear the concern from his eyes.

"You stole crutches from a hospital. Now we're even." Angela sighed and put a hand up to Booth's face, wincing when she felt the heat radiating from him.

"Besides, we're all family. All of us." Her eyes teared at the end of her sentence and she shook her head, both hands coming up to cover her face. It only took Hodgins a moment to get himself next to her.

"Yeah, we are, Ange. And this family is not losing anyone today. Not today."

"God, but Brennan…" Angela's eyes were closed, trying to keep in the tears that threatened so it was only Jack who saw Booth's eyes open to their bloodshot fullest.

"Bones…" He whispered.

_xXx xXx xXx_

"Agent Sullivan?" It had taken him four minutes to get Zach to sit in the corner, finally convinced Sully didn't need help. Another six minutes spent trying to get more information at the desk. Thirteen minutes pacing. Three minutes conversing with Cam, telling her what he knew; not a lot. Another five and a half minutes pacing and now, finally, someone wanted to tell him something.

"Yes, what is it? Is she okay?" The woman who had called his name wasn't in a nurse's uniform. Her bearing and the stethoscope in her top pocket told him she was a doctor.

"We've finished operating, for the time being. There was a lot of internal trauma. She's still classed highly critical." Sully bit his lip, knowing the answer but still holding hope.

"The baby?" The doctor's eyes slid away for just a moment, but it was enough. He'd imagined this moment, but thought Brennan would have been giving him the news, telling him she'd had it done despite what he wanted. He clenched a fist, wanting to take out his anger. But there was nothing to be angry at, other than time, and circumstance, and the damn dog that ran across the road.

"Can I see her? Please." The doctor levelled a gaze at him, measuring his anxiety. Obviously she thought it was high enough.

"For a moment. She's still unconscious." Sully nodded and turned to yell at Zach who was half out of his chair, waiting for the news.

"Tell them I'm going to see Tempe. Tell them… Tell them it doesn't look good."

_Firstly, to everyone who's taken the time to review; thank you, thank you, thank you. Your input and opinions are very much appreciated. _

_Secondly, in case it occurred to you; how did Sully know about the dog? The ambulance officers, of course, who would have overheard it from the police… He just knew. A girl's gotta be able to take some artistic liberties._


	5. Chapter 5

Cam looked into the window at Booth's now sleeping form.

"At least he recovered strength quickly," Hodgins said, trying to lighten their moods. Booth had whispered Bones' name before he really got control of his voice. Then he was shouting for her, his arms trying to propel him out of bed while ripping out tubes and drips. Nurses had flocked, as well as several doctors. Injections had been given, drips replaced. Now Booth was in the state of the drug induced senseless; blissfully unaware.

"If anything happens to Dr Brennan, it will kill him." Cam said, turning away from the window. Angela wiped one of her eyes and nodded. They stood in silence, aware that the statement was completely true. Booth took responsibility, even where it wasn't due. Survivor's guilt would crumble him as surely as Brennan's death would change everything at the Jeffersonian.

"Sully went to see Dr Brennan. Something the doctor said prompted him to tell me that it doesn't look good." Zach snuck up on them unwittingly, causing Cam's hand to clutch her heart when his voice was suddenly audible behind her.

"Do you know where she is, if we can see her?" Zach shook his head and Angela sighed, looking in at Booth for a long moment.

"I'm going back to the waiting room." She finally announced and left, Hodgins' trailing her. Cam opened the door to Booth's room.

"I'm going to sit with him." She closed it softly behind her. Zach looked at the ceiling, and then the floor. He shuffled his feet and stroked his tie, just once. He didn't want to consider Dr Brennan not coming to work again, couldn't comprehend the loss he might feel if that happened, so he began to recite the bones of the body under his breath, visualising each one as the name came, imagining Dr Brennan handling them with gloved fingertips.

And he shuffled his feet again.

_xXx xXx xXx_

Sully felt the air involuntarily leave his lungs as he laid eyes on her. She looked so small in the bed, her height hidden by the sheet that was draped, creaseless, over her. Her eyes were closed and her breathing rattled along the tube down her throat. Her face was bruised, lips bloodied, one cheekbone rapidly darkening with a spreading bruise.

"We'll take that out as soon as we're sure she can breathe on her own." The doctor noticed him looking at it.

"What… What else did you have to do?" His voice failed him the first time and he needed to restart the sentence.

"There was a lot of blood in her internal cavities. The ambulance officers had to give her something to clot her blood which, I'm sorry, started the miscarriage that could've been inevitable."

"Could've?" Sully asked. Could their child have survived this without the drugs?

"We have no way of knowing if it was the medication or the trauma of the accident. Certainly there would have been some kind of effect on the foetus." Her voice seemed detached, and her words reminded him of Brennan. She'd never called it a baby, or a child, only a foetus.

"We had to remove her spleen, and may have to remove a kidney in twenty-four to forty-eight hours. The head CT scans we did have came up relatively clear, but there is one small bleed our neurosurgeon is keeping an eye on. It should heal itself, but pressure around the brain may have to be eased and there is still the chance of a long coma. Her right wrist is broken, and there is trauma to the muscles around her ankles on both legs as well as fractures to her pelvis and scapula. There are also numerous grazes and several deep cuts to her right side which have to be redressed each day to lower her chance of infection. She's a high risk for septicaemia because of the long amount of time she spent trapped at the crash site. We'll also need to get an OB-GYN to do a consult as she may need a dilation and curettage. We're monitoring her for tachypnea and tachycardia and we've administered several doses of antibiotics."

"Will she survive?" He couldn't believe how pale she was, how clammy and transparent her skin looked under the sickly hospital lighting.

"We hope so. But we can't say for sure yet." The doctor stepped away from the bed and motioned for Sully to follow her.

"Can't I stay?" He asked, his words almost desperate. Her eyes searched his for a long moment.

"I'm sorry. She really needs to be resting right now." Sully brushed a hand lightly along the sheet, not wanting to touch her in case it started a chorus of emergency alarms from the rows of machines keeping her tethered to this world. The doctor's pager went off suddenly, making him jump.

"I'm sorry, I really have to go." Her arm held the door open for him and he moved past her, turning to take one last look. She remained as motionless as before until the door swung shut, blocking his view.

_xXx xXx xXx_

They reconvened in the waiting area, filling it with their sorrow and weight of the unknown. Booth, they all knew by now, would recover. But Dr. Brennan was still touch and go and they could all feel it; the centre crumbling around them while they did nothing but sipped black coffee aimlessly.

"I'm going back to check on Booth again." Angela said, breaking the silence that had descended over them all. Jack stood with her.

"I'll come." There wasn't so much as a murmur that farewelled them from the overly air conditioned space; everyone was thinking their own thoughts, wrapped up in their own versions of a pain that was growing the longer Brennan stayed asleep.

"What should we tell him?" Angela asked as they walked slowly towards the ICU, hands touching, brushing, but not holding.

"Nothing." Jack said. "We don't know anything... Nothing that would be any use to him, anyway, while he's trying to get better." Sully had reported what the doctor had told him almost verbatim, his ambulance training coming in handy for once. For once, ignorance had been bliss. When they didn't know, they were only imagining the worst, not being told it by Brennan's boyfriend.

Angela had managed to corner Sully at the coffee machine, a rare moment when it was just the two of them. His grief, deeper than it should have been in the situation, told her everything she needed to know about the baby. She was glad he hadn't told anyone else about this; if Booth knew, it would kill him.

They both paused a moment outside the door, looking through the glass. The heart monitor was a steady beep in the background, soothing in its monotony, in the way Booth's heart could just keep going without skipping a beat. His eyes were open and as soon as they looked towards the doorway, Angela and Hodgins pushed the door open.

"Well, they haven't bought the food cart around yet." Jack opened the conversation. "No pudding."

Booth looked between them and Angela could see pudding was the last thing on his mind.

"Bones?" He asked. Angela held his hand, was quick to answer.

"She's okay." A look shared between Hodgins, that Booth missed, was the only tell in her lie.

"So I can see her?" He was optimistic but subdued and Angela could tell he didn't want to be sedated again so he was staying as motionless as possible. Not jumping out of bed, ripping out his drips and searching the hallways until he found her was an effort for him and it registered as a quickening in the bleeps of the heart monitor.

"Once you're not bedridden, why not?" Angela sent up a little prayer to the few gods she believed in to wake Bren up before Booth learnt of her untruth.

Booth's eyes found the ceiling again, looked over the panels, counted the brushstrokes of white paint, stayed silent.

Angela shared a long look with Hodgins before squeezing Booth's hand. The guilt in the room was crushing; Booth as the driver, Angela for giving good news when there was none to give.

_xXx xXx xXx_

_YES! I'm finally continuing on with this fic. It's been a long while, I know – did you have to go back and refresh your memory? Apologies... But here's to hoping I finish it this time. I have every intention..._

_So the pudding comment from Hodgins is a little shout out to the episode where Booth is in hospital and Hodgins' takes his pudding._

_I have no idea if the medical stuff is factual. Sorry for any medical people out there reading this and shaking their heads – if you send corrections I will duly correct!_

_Also, reviews = love. And everyone needs a bit of love in their life._


	6. Chapter 6

They ate from takeout containers in the waiting room, infecting it with the smell of Thai food. They'd asked but Booth wasn't allowed any additional food to what the hospital had already supplied because of his medications. Dr. Brennan still hadn't awoken, something everyone was trying hard to ignore. Everyone except Zach.

"It's been nine hours." He didn't consult a watch to tell him the time, relying on some kind of internal timer that had been ticking since they'd been given the news, had rushed to the hospital.

When no one answered he tried again. "She should have woken up by now. In the case of severe trauma-."

"Zach, shut up." Hodgins' words worked for a few, blissful seconds.

"But if she dies-." Again he was cut off.

"Zach, I will punch you in the face. It's going to hurt. Your nose may never look or feel the same again. If. You. Say. One. More. Word." Hodgins glare made Zach put down his takeout container quietly and leave the room. He and Brennan were the same; they were missing the internal filter that alerted people to the correct behaviour and words in certain social situations. Angela had always thought it was a trade off – people with intelligence that high needed to lose something from their brains to fit in the extra IQ points. Subsequently, she to remind herself every time Brennan said something that made Angela want to grab her and shake her that it wasn't their fault.

Angela put down her Pad Thai and touched Jack on the shoulder, letting him know she didn't blame him for threatening Zach. Even if it wasn't their fault, they were freaking geniuses – couldn't they just learn that there was bad luck in talking about the death of someone who was currently hovering in limbo. And that superstitions were taken so much more seriously when there was a life in the balance.

"Zach." He was in the hallway, leaning against the wall. In his suit he looked older than she'd ever imagined him to be.

"I don't know why he's so angry. I was merely-." This time it was Angela's turn to cut him off, but she tried not to do it unkindly.

"Zach, there are some things people don't want to talk about. Even if we're all thinking about it. Talking about it might make it more real."

"But it is real. She's been in a coma for over nine hours. Her internal injuries were severe." Angela shut her eyes and leant on the wall next to Zach, trying to appear impervious to his words, hoping he wouldn't continue. Unfortunately, he did.

"If she dies, I can't continue my work."

"What?" Angela looked incredulously at Zach. Was hyper-rationality really a trade-off for sensitivity or humanity?

"She's the best in the field, the best in the world. I can't learn from anyone else. I'll have to change specialties." He was mulling now, getting that panicked look he got when it didn't take him two tenths of a millisecond to work something out. "And I couldn't work at the Jeffersonian if she wasn't there, even if someone else took over because..." He had been muttering the last line to himself and, finally, he looked up at Angela.

"Oh." He said at last, coming to the same conclusion everyone else had arrived at as soon as Cam had brought them the news.

Angela looked, then motioned down the hallway to where a female doctor was entering the waiting room. She pulled Zach along the hallway to hear the news but met a breathless Sully coming out.

"She's awake."

_xXx xXx xXx_

It had been a slow fade from black back into lighter colours; white, beige, light blue. Then shadows had lengthened and added more hues, so much grey she wondered if red was a colour at all. But there it was, being fed into her arm through an intravenous line.

"Dr Brennan?" The voice was unfamiliar, detached and professional. Brennan looked up, saw a doctor standing over her bedside, a nurse flanking her. With the increasing awareness came the pain, waves of it that started somewhere deep inside. Her sudden intake of breath was the only concession she made to it, which allowed her to feel the breathing tube she had in place. She gasped against it, unable to control her breathing, trying to breathe around the tube; failing. The doctor came towards her with gloved hands and slowly removed the tube.

"We've given you some morphine but we can't risk giving you too much in case you need neurosurgery. The final check from the neurosurgeon will be in," a quick check of her watch, "two hours. Until then, I'm sorry, but you'll have to live with the pain though it should be minor, nothing the morphine shouldn't handle."

"Booth." His name came to her without conscious thought, tumbling out of clenched teeth. The doctor looked up from the chart she was making notes on. The nurse continued checking the machines around her, adjusting things, providing movement to Brennan's periphery.

"Agent Booth is okay. He needs to be kept in overnight for observation but he escaped serious injury. His right scapula is fractured and he has several broken ribs. One of his ribs punctured his lung but we operated earlier and got that under control. He's going to be fine."

Brennan shut her eyes, surrendering to the pain that made focusing on anything other than the dark red shapes that danced behind her eyelids excruciating. The doctor continued, her voice soothing, tethering Brennan to consciousness.

"You've got a lot of people waiting on news of you. I'm going to let them know you're awake but I won't let any of them see you until we've cleared you for more morphine."

A door opened and closed twice and Brennan knew she was alone in the room again. The machines that she was attached to had their own cacophony of sound, one steady bleep reassuring her above the rest; as long as she could hear her heart still beating she would know she was alive.

_xXx xXx xXx_

Booth's plan was to get dressed out of the stupid gown that hospitals always put you in and make his way to Bones' room. Then he would sit outside it until he was allowed inside. When he was allowed to sit with her he would remain there until she was discharged.

He knew Angela had lied to him. It had only taken five minutes with Zach to get the whole story; everything everyone else had been hiding from him.

She'd been in a coma for almost ten hours. She was missing a spleen and they'd thought they might have to take a kidney out, too. Her brain had bled into her skull. One of her ankles was injured, her pelvis was fractured and her wrist was broken. The list went on, and its length was something he reminded himself of frequently; all this damage that he was the cause of.

_xXx xXx xXx_

Cam still wasn't sure when she'd become so attached to Dr Brennan. She'd seen her as a threat at first, to both her job and the man she was seeing. But it had been necessary to win her over, because without Temperance Brennan no one at the Jeffersonian would have remotely considered listening to anything Cam had to say. Correction – they would have listened, nodded politely, then gone to ask Dr Brennan what she wanted them to do next.

As to Booth; Cam had never lost him to Brennan simply because she'd never had him in the first place. She'd convinced herself they could be a couple but, as it turned out, Booth was simply distracting himself until Dr Brennan was ready to be with him. Then Cam had been endangered and Booth had done the right thing, in his mind; severed all ties between them. It was something Cam couldn't blame Brennan for since the woman was still oblivious to Booth's feeling. The woman didn't do well with hints, no matter how obvious. Now all the squints, a group Cam considered herself on the periphery of, were waiting to see when Booth would finally man up and tell her.

Now, waiting her turn to see lay eyes on the woman who she'd come to admire far more than she expected to, Cam couldn't even fathom what the loss of her would do to Booth, to all of them. That's why she had to see Dr Brennan herself, even if only to convince herself she would recover, and things could be the way they were. Because, despite her misgivings about coming into such a tight knit team, Cam couldn't imagine working anywhere else.

_xXx xXx xXx_

_I'm trying to rotate POV's without drawing it out too much... Started this fic so long ago that I'm just mixing and matching stuff from episodes that came after season 2, while still trying to keep the timeline loosely based around then in terms of character relationships and development. But some things from later may sneak in. Hopefully it still reads okay._

_I'm still not that big on Cam – is anyone else? She provides some comic relief but I was hoping it would be a rotating character – someone else would come in for season 3 to give new character dynamics. At least they're doing that with the squinterns now. She just doesn't seem to have her character firmly established yet – she's funny, then stern, then she doesn't know something, then she knows everything... _

_Thanks for the reviews so far, I do try to reply to every single one so if you've got a question or suggestion send it on through._

_Special and huge thanks to mendenbar who corrected me on the last chapter (new version now in place). Curette (the instrument they use to perform the procedure) has now been changed to dilation and curettage. Told you – I suck at facts. So thanks for that, and for your message. xx_


	7. Chapter 7

Hodgins waited outside her doorway, standing in an oddly ordered line between Angela and Zach. They were waiting for the doctor to perform her final checks, to make sure the patient could be visited at this time.

Although visiting hours were definitely over the doctor seemed to know none of them would be leaving the hospital until they could all see her, until they were all sure she was fine. Even then, he wasn't sure any of them would be leaving; not until she was moved from the critical list to something less.

Sully motioned to Cam to allow her to go in first. Hodgins knew what he was doing; waiting until the end so he could wheedle more time out of the doctor. Sully had already seen her, but she hadn't been awake. He'd told them to be prepared for her face, the bruising, and for the amount of machines that were keeping track of her, making sure she could not simply slip away.

Cam came out before her allotted five minutes was up, looking shaken. Hodgins wasn't sure how he would feel. While not hiring him directly, Dr Brennan had been instrumental in keeping Hodgins at the Jeffersonian and had taught him so much about science that he could never have learned in university or under any other scientist. She'd taught him about life, too, unwittingly. In his interactions with her she had been unfailingly rational while still maintaining a kindness, a grace that made it easy to see how smitten Booth was, how adoring Zach was, how she aspired and maintained a legion of fans who didn't even know the real Dr Brennan, the one she kept so carefully hidden behind the impressive knowledge she had.

Angela had followed Cam and Hodgins had meant to go after her but when she came out of the room tearstained he motioned to Zach, wanting those five minutes to go towards Angela.

"She looks so..." Angela hugged him, her head level with his, chin on his shoulder. He was scared of it, of seeing the infallible Dr Brennan in such a state. He had no doubt his respect for her would remain absolute but it was just a situation he didn't want to be in. He wanted to be back in the lab, waiting for her to present them with another dead body, another puzzle they would all work through together.

Instead he was waiting in the hallway, hugging a woman that he loved, that he had met only because of Dr Brennan, waiting for his five minute turn that he would take only because he needed her to know her survival was obligatory; that she couldn't build something so great without staying to see it through.

_xXx xXx xXx_

Morphine had allowed her to drift through everyone's visits, able to nod and respond to them but not able form thoughts coherently enough to tell them anything or ask each of them the question she really wanted answered; how was Booth? While the doctor had given her a factual answer, for some reason that wasn't enough. Facts had always been the backbone of her existence but when it came to Booth, she needed more. He worked on feelings, on instincts, things that worked on different plane than she could even consider. So, she rationalised through the drug haze that dulled every thought she had, she would need to know more than facts to convince her that he really was okay.

Luckily, Angela knew her well enough to force information on Booth through her tears. Brennan wanted to tell her not to cry; she was going to be fine, but the words wouldn't come. And, she had to admit, because they were shedding tears for her, she felt so... Brennan couldn't find a word for it. Not inside her pain killer bubble.

"He's fine. They had to operate on him but, well, you know Booth. He's strong. He should be able to go home tomorrow, or the day after, they said." Angela brushed aside another tear, held Brennan's hand tighter. "Sully let us see you before him, but he's really worried. He saw you before you were awake..." The nurse came in, looked at her watch pointedly. Angela sighed, too aware that the precious five minutes they'd had together were well and truly over.

"I'll see you again when they let me." She braved the wires and tubes to hug Brennan lightly.

Zach was next, then Hodgins. Neither of them had much to say; general condolences stammered through fear stained voices. She hated not being able to answer anyone, to have to be so weak in front of all of them.

Before Hodgins left, the doctor was back in, trying to stop the man who was going to gain access to her room no matter what the doctor did. Brennan saw him, eyes widening in relief. Here was a fact she knew Booth could believe in; him, being here in front of her, mobile, standing, looking pale but still so vital and alive.

"Booth." It was the first word she'd spoken and it came from bruised lips, her voice cracking over the single syllable, travelling through a throat that was still tender from the breathing tube. He stopped and she knew it wasn't because of the doctor who was still desperately trying to block his entrance. His eyes swept over her sheeted form, paused at each tube and wire that snaked to or from her body. He carefully examined her face, wincing almost imperceptively at each bruise she could no longer feel. Then his eyes reached hers and the drugs receded, her pain increased; but it wasn't a physical pain.

He was hurt, much more hurt than he was letting on. She could see the pain darkening the brown, drawing his eyebrows deep towards his eyes, hunching his shoulders as if folding inwards could stave off the agony he must be in.

"Sir, Agent Booth, you can't be in here. You shouldn't be out of bed!" The doctor's words impacted their world, her hand pushing insistently at Booth's chest. Again, her effect was minimal as Booth moved past Hodgins to pull the visitor's chair closer and sit down. A layer of sweat beaded his brow, evidence that the doctor's words were, in fact, correct.

Brennan reached a hand out obediently, needing the contact, and Booth took it, still as defiant of the authority figure in the room as his cocky belt buckle.

"I'm still in the hospital. You can monitor me from here." His tone was low, threatening, and Brennan looked towards the doctor, willing a compromise.

"Fine. But only for ten minutes." As Booth started to argue, the doctor held up a hand, palm out, stopping him. "That isn't for you, Agent Booth. Dr Brennan is still in critical condition and she needs her rest." Booth looked down at her, nodded.

The doctor left, Hodgins following closely behind.

"You're..." Brennan had to trail off, squeeze his hand to let her continue when she could gather enough breath in her lungs, "...hurt." He leaned over towards her and she saw the skeleton beneath the skin, could tell exactly which ribs had been broken.

"I'm hurting," he said, "because you're hurt."

She looked at him questioningly, wanting him to continue. His logic was as illogical as ever. How could he feel her pain? Transference was not a human condition.

Before he could explain she felt more pain, an intensified aching in her lower abdomen and back. She squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to, not wanting to lose Booth's gaze but unable to tolerate the light, the additional stimulation to her body that was currently entirely focussed on the torture taking place below her ribcage.

The steady beeping she had come to rely on was an increasing crescendo; another machine alarmed and she felt Booth's hand slipping away from her. Then, blissfully, she was no longer in pain; she was unaware of anything except a deep pool of black that she could frolic in, painless, free.

_xXx xXx xXx_

_Yes, a cliffhanger. Sorry... Would I really kill off our favourite crime solver? Wait and see... I promise the next chapter will be posted super soon._

_Meanwhile, the word Brennan was looking for, how she felt, was 'loved'. But that doesn't really seem to be in her vocabulary (not enough syllables in it, probably), so I had to leave it at a blank. Hopefully you guys put that word, or another one like it, in there._

_I was, as always, listening to music while I was writing and the song 'Experiment Number Six' by Lemon Jelly came on. If you've never heard it, seriously, look it up. Their whole album 'Lost Horizons' is beautiful, blissed out music. But this song in particular makes a lot of sense to this chapter. Especially the ending – "5:42. Experiment ends."_

_Listen and let me know what you think. _

_I'm still loving reviews. They make me happy. And it's so easy to do... nudge, nudge._


	8. Chapter 8

He'd prayed for her in the hospital chapel after she'd been carted away from him. It had scared him to see her, not writhing in pain, but _not_ writhing in pain, simply passed out without a fight. Bones would take any pain head on and try to deny how much it hurt; he could still remember her once pulling the scalpel she'd been stabbed with out of her arm as he looked on in horror. But this time there'd been barely a fight, only a single shudder that ran through her whole body and caused her to squeeze his hand so hard he'd felt pain, felt the bones grating together under her slender fingers. But it had been nothing compared to the pain she'd been in, pain that had caused her to completely lose consciousness, to slip away from him in a matter of seconds.

It wasn't the first time he'd prayed for her but it was the most fervently. He had been able to save her before, able to seek out the evil that took her, unravel the clues that had been left behind. This time there was no evil. There were no clues, nothing he could do. He was powerless, except in his faith. Even then, he could hear Bones in his head telling him he was still powerless, that his faith in a myth was like yelling into an abyss, pretending there was someone else out there listening.

But it had worked. She'd been in surgery for several more hours but had emerged, still breathing, heart still beating. They'd all waited in the waiting room, a place that had turned into the unofficial Jeffersonian. Booth had waited with them, still refusing to go back to his room. A reluctant nurse had come by every hour to take his pulse and temperature.

Finally, the doctor who was becoming so familiar to them all appeared, gave them good news. Booth wondered briefly if she ever slept, recognised the tiredness in her eyes, a tiredness that reflected from all of them. The sun was starting to rise when they could finally see her again. This time it was only a look through a glass window but it was enough. Booth knew they were all noting the rise and fall of her chest, the monitor that gave them her pulse.

She was back and it looked like she was going to stay with them this time.

_xXx xXx xXx_

Two weeks in the hospital, then four weeks enforced bed rest. A further four weeks leave was imposed on her by Cam, despite the fact that Brennan had argued as best she could while still trying to stay calm so the damn heart monitor wouldn't sound its annoying alarm. Ten weeks away from the lab. Ten weeks she had to fill without being able to examine a skeleton, work with Booth, touch bones.

She knew she'd survived an incredible trauma but she didn't know why everyone was still treating her as so fragile; she'd survived. She was going to be fine. She should be able to move on from it however she wanted.

Booth and Sully had played tag team around her bedside, a term Sully had employed and Booth had explained to her later. Angela had also made appearances, bringing gossip magazines, chocolates and flowers.

"Why are you bringing me chocolates if I can't get out of bed to exercise? Do you want me to leave here three sizes bigger?" Brennan had asked Angela incredulously as she'd come bearing another large box full of calorie filled chocolates. She neglected to tell her that Sully and Booth had consumed the last two boxes, both favouriting the caramel centres. Booth had gotten all of them from the last box, and had even gloated as he tucked one into his pocket 'for later'. She knew it was just to deny Sully.

"Sweetie, it's what you do to people who are in hospital. You bring them special things to show them how special they are to you. And chocolate is pretty damn special. Especially when it's in liquid form and drizzled..." Angela trailed off and laughed at Brennan's raised eyebrows.

"But those details will be shared when you're _not_ on a heart monitor."

Sully still hadn't brought up what they'd been fighting about before the accident, and Brennan was grateful. He was probably saving it until she was recovered more; something she knew she was when the doctor came to remove several of the monitors that had kept her awake at night with their noise.

Pretending she'd never been pregnant was what she wanted, despite the fact that it wasn't rational. Especially not since she had to break the news to Sully that the miscarriage had been more severe than the doctors had first realised. Despite never wanting children before, Brennan had always liked having the choice. Now she didn't even have that.

_xXx xXx xXx_

As much as she tried to tell everyone she was fine, she still looked so pale. Her cheekbone was lightening to blue and yellow, colours that stood out on the white of her face. He ached to reach out, try and fade the painful hues with his touch, but Sully had arrived. Early. They'd reached an agreement on visiting hours but, judging by Sully's nervous energy, he had something he needed to discuss.

"Tempe." His tone was dark, and Booth hovered by the door, waited while Sully reached for one of her hands while she looked elsewhere to avoid his eyes.

"Tempe. I'm sorry – about... Are you?"

"Sully…" She didn't answer his question, only looked away, and he dropped the hand he'd just picked up.

"I didn't tell them. They asked me… They asked me specifically and I couldn't…"

"You couldn't or you didn't want to?" Sully's voice sounded suddenly harsh. Booth stood up from his slouched position against the door frame, wincing as his backbone uncoiled, his broken ribs flexed. He couldn't believe Sully was being this insensitive.

"You heard them ask, and you didn't answer. But they said you talked at the scene… We both know it would've been convenient for you." Booth looked between Bones and Sully in time to see her eyes fill with tears, the blue pooling towards crystalline. Sully was shaking his head, stepping away from the bedside.

"Whatever you're talking about, she doesn't need it right now." Booth had crossed the room, was standing close enough to Sully to entertain thoughts of wrapping his hand around the other man's throat to make him see sense. Sully was a friend, but Bones was a friend in need and she outweighed anyone else in an equation. Especially when she was lying in a hospital bed with a bruise on her face and recent surgery under her belt.

"No, Booth. Please… He's… He's right."

"What?" Booth turned from Sully and dropped the hand that had been moving steadily for his windpipe.

"What?" Sully repeated Booth's words and moved around him. He resumed shaking his head.

"I just can't believe... You knew how I felt…"

"I'm so sorry. But I couldn't…" She turned her head away and lifted a small hand to swipe back an errant strand of hair. The drip in her hand trailed after her arm, clear tubing snaking across white sheets.

"Then neither can I." And he was gone. Booth took a few faltering steps to the door, his need to forcibly drag Sully back and make him apologise competing with his disinclination to leave her bedside. The doctor's had assured him, albeit evadingly, that she was going to be fine eventually. But they'd said that once before, just as cautiously. And she'd passed out while holding his hand.

"Hey, it's okay… He'll be back." Booth finally stayed. Sully didn't deserve a second chance, and be damned if Booth was going to help him get one.

"No. No, he won't." Her voice came out wavering, wounded, fluttering up her throat to land between them like a dying bird. But the certainty behind her words he couldn't deny. He took her hand and squeezed it. It was still so cold in his, so small it was engulfed by his fingers. She closed her eyes and the space she took up became unsubstantial without the blue of her eyes illuminating it. Whatever she'd done to Sully, it was a moot point. Right now all he cared about was that the colour would come back to her face, the sparkle back to her eyes. And if Sully wasn't going to be here to hold her hand in the visiting hours he'd been allotted, Booth would gladly take his place.

_xXx xXx xXx_

_Any guesses for the episode where Bones pulls a scalpel out of her arm? Booth is like "Don't pull it out, don't touch it!" and of course Brennan just yanks it out and tells him to keep pressure on the wound as she tries not to pass out. I love that scene._

_Also I meant to get Parker in here somewhere with Rebecca but it just didn't work without stopping the flow... let's assume he knows his Dad is okay and Rebecca kept him away because Booth didn't want him seeing him like that, yeah? After all, he's never visited him in the hospital otherwise (has he? I don't like absolute statements that are written down – way harder to defend)._

_Reviews much coveted. xx_


	9. Chapter 9

_This fic has been going on for some time, so here's a short recap:_

_Brennan and Sully are together, so it is set around season 2 however I did incorporate a little bit from Harbinger's in a Fountain (snaps to IDigBones23, imabookworm815, and SouthunLady who all knew that) so it's not exactly canon. But I would definitely say it's pre-Booth's 100__th__ episode admission._

_Brennan is pregnant, an accident. She doesn't want the baby – Sully does. They're discussing (arguing about) it. Then Booth crashes the SUV they're travelling in while on the way to arrest the bad guy. She loses the baby. Sully knows this, and knows she didn't tell the ambulance officers she was pregnant. Which he thinks was a convenient way to organise an abortion. Booth doesn't know anything about the pregnancy, only that something was on Brennan's mind, but naturally he thinks the crash was his fault. Which it wasn't – a dog ran across the road causing the traffic in front to stop suddenly and Booth's car to slam into the back of a truck._

_We left our favourite characters in hospital – Booth visiting, Brennan staying. But, unless you're Shonda Rhimes (sp?) and writing for Grey's Anatomy, there's only so much you can squeeze out of a hospital. So it's moving on a little with this chapter – Bones is home and mending. Now, on with the story..._

She cajoled her way back to work early, which basically meant out-rationalising Cam until she had her backed into a corner, ready to admit defeat – something Seeley Booth rarely saw.

She was still limping slightly and had to move slower to get around. She hadn't shared with him exactly what was still hurting but some days he imagined everything was. He'd assigned himself to mundane cases while she was away, not wanting to have to go to the Jeffersonian and see her office empty. He'd also made it a habit to bring her takeout at least once a week while she was on leave, usually more, to try and take her mind off the fact that she was so trapped by her own injuries; unable to work or move without pain.

He'd expected her to be cranky because of it – and while a cranky Bones was somewhat amusing, it could also be potentially life threatening. But instead she was listless. He expected her morose mood to lift when she got back to work but it just seemed to get worse.

And he had to give her credit for reading people. Sully had never come back – something else Booth was ready to lay at his own door, adding it to everything else he felt guilty about simply because he'd taken his eyes off the road to check on her, to try and find out, once again, what had been bothering her.

"How'd you go on that ID, Bones?" Booth looked into her office. She was sitting in front of her computer – not typing, just reading, absorbed in whatever it was. She startled at his voice, jumped in her seat then hissed in pain, trying to keep quiet so he wouldn't hear. Even at her half-profile, though, he could read it all over her face.

He wanted to apologise for that, for all of it, but he had never found the right words to say for any of it. How could he tell her he woke up sweating every night, trying to avoid running into the back of a truck, trying not to see her bloodied face looking across at him from the compacted cab of the SUV they'd been travelling in, glass fragments shattered through her hair, eyes wide but seeing nothing.

It only took her a second to move in her seat, ease into a more comfortable position. He guessed it was still her pelvis hurting, the fracture slower to heal than she had told him.

"Angela has a face. She's running it through the database. And Cam is extracting DNA." She was gingerly standing, fingernails white on the edge of the table as she eased her body straight, ready to accompany him to Angela's office.

He followed her but she stopped abruptly in the doorway, causing him to bump into her. They both paused a moment, letting the pain settle before Booth took a step back, out of her personal space. Booth had broken ribs before but never as bad as this. And he knew Bones' shoulder blade was still healing. She was meant to have a sling on but she preferred to be at work without it – he knew it was to stop the continual pity glances she hated. The wrist splint she still wore grudgingly, but only when her wrist was hurting. The cast she'd bullied the doctors into taking off early.

She turned and snagged her lab coat from the coat rack. Booth knew putting it on was an effort for her and he took it from her without a word, held the arms out. She was careful not to manipulate her shoulder too far so he moved the sleeve as much as he could without putting his hands on her and pulling the coat on as he used to do with Parker before he could dress himself.

She was unable to reach high enough with both hands to flick her hair out of her collar and Booth did this for her, hand gently brushing the smooth skin at the nape of her neck.

"Thanks," she said, a smile on her lips that didn't quite meet her eyes. He couldn't find it in himself to smile back, knowing she would have been able to put her jacket on and flick her own hair back while walking briskly towards Angela's office if he'd kept his eyes on the road.

_xXx xXx xXx_

Brennan sat back in her chair and tried to find a position that was comfortable. She'd meant to finish her novel while she was on leave from work but it hadn't turned out that way. She wasn't sure how she'd filled in the six weeks she'd spent in her apartment but the time was gone and she was barely any closer to giving her publisher a completed book that could be marketed in time for the Christmas period.

There was a knock on her door and she raised herself to her feet, still annoyed at how long it took. She knew bones, knew how long they took to heal and knew she was being unreasonable to expect her pelvis and scapula to be healed completely but she hadn't expected to still be in so much pain. The internal injuries were contributing but they only twinged now and then, sometimes woke her at night if she accidentally twisted while she slept.

Booth was outside her door, bottle of wine and takeout in hand. She smiled, opened the door wider to let him in.

"Something new – Vietnamese."

"We ate Vietnamese three weeks ago."

"I meant new for this week, Bones." She rolled her eyes, motioned him towards the kitchen. Her glasses were in the top cupboard and she reached up while Booth was busy opening the wine. She heard his gasp and looked over, expecting him to be dropping something or to have corked the bottle. Instead he was looking at her midsection where her shirt had risen to reveal some of the penetrating wounds she'd received from various shrapnel pieces in the accident. They looked worse than they were although they were more than superficial wounds; they had gone in deep enough to require internal and external stitches. The internal stitches were still dissolving and itched sometimes. The external stitches had been removed last week by Cam in her office.

"What?" She asked, forgetting her hand that still lingered in the top cabinet, bringing a wine glass down to bounce off the bench and shatter on the wooden floor under her feet.

They both jumped at the sound but when Brennan landed she twisted, trying not to embed glass in the soles of her bare feet. She knew as soon as she landed, could feel the twist in her pelvis, the fracture shifting against its own edges, making her grab for the bench with her hands. This hurt her wrist, sent shockwaves up her arm that grated on her scapula.

She was trying not to scream, not to let him see her any weaker than what he had already. She'd been through worse than a car accident; why would this be the incident that imprinted itself so deeply on her body?

Then he was with her, catching her before she could fall, shoes crushing harmlessly over the broken glass. He grabbed her around the waist and she clung onto him as he moved her away from the glass. She was about to let him go when she was sure she had her balance until she felt his shoulders shaking.

"Booth?" Was he laughing at her? She knew she could be graceless but surely he could take her injuries into account. She was about to tell him this when she realised he wasn't laughing.

"Booth, what's wrong?" She moved a hand up to rest on his neck, shifted so he could rest his head on her shoulder.

"I'm..." She could feel his chest expand against her front as he took a deep breath, regained control.

"Are your ribs hurting? Do you want me to look at them?" She moved her left hand down to his ribs, started running it over them, checking for any anomalies. His hand grabbed hers lightly, stilled it.

"No, Bones, _I'm_ fine." His emphasis was trying to tell her something but she didn't know what.

"Then...?" Sometimes she couldn't understand him at all, felt so out of depth, lost in his actions, which he always maintained spoke louder than words. She'd never understood that proverb – actions were incapable of speaking, unless the action was speaking, in which case-

"Bones, you." He disentangled them gently, moved himself back so she could see the tears that remained in his eyes.

"I'm fine, Booth." She said automatically, still trying to decipher his previous words.

"No, you're not. You keep saying that but you think I don't notice how every little movement brings you pain? How you're so careful standing up and sitting down and why you let the squintern-of-the-week move the camera around whatever skeleton you're examining so you don't have to reach higher than your waist." He rushed his words and she took them in, as always marvelling at his skills of observation.

"I'm still healing, Booth." She said simply and amended her former statement to a different tense. "I will be fine. I just need time."

"Exactly. Time you shouldn't have to take if I didn't... If I had just kept my eyes..." She narrowed her eyes, giving herself a moment to understand what he was saying and hating every minute of her extended thought process – why was it so hard to decipher his words? Why did he have to layer everything in useless emotion?

"Wait, Booth, are you... Do you blame yourself for this?"

"Of course I do!" The words exploded out of him and she knew he'd been keeping them in for so long, had been wanting to say them since the first time he'd come to her bedside at the hospital.

"Booth, it was a dog. A stupid dog that ran onto the road. If you could control the minds of dogs then you'd be doing a far better job than that guy on cable who whispers at them."

"The dog whisperer," Booth supplied automatically and Brennan nodded.

"I know who he is." There was a brief silence between them while Brennan tried to find the right words. But she never knew them, had never had to find them herself; Booth was always there, ready to deliver them straight to her so she could send them along appropriately.

"Booth, it wasn't your fault. Not even a little bit. Even if you'd been looking at the road the whole time you still wouldn't have been able to stop in time. I can supply the math if you don't believe me." She could see he didn't believe her but she didn't feel the calculations of stopping power on a car that size on a road of that surface travelling at that speed were going to convince him.

"Booth." He wouldn't look at her and she raised her hand, the one he didn't have clasped in his, to turn his cheek towards her. Without her heels she was shorter than she usually was and he looked down at her.

"I don't blame you. And if it makes you feel better, I forgive you. I don't know what else to say. It was an accident! Accidents happen because things go wrong. With all the variables in the universe you can't assume something bad will never happen – actually you should assume it will. Statistically more people have car accidents than plane, train and tractor accidents combined."

"But Sully?" Booth asked, avoiding her eyes. She could tell he was still trying to find more things he could blame himself for, trying to find something she couldn't talk him out of. "He fought with you in the hospital, somewhere you wouldn't be if not for me."

"Don't be stupid, Booth." She hadn't called him stupid in a while and it brought his eyes to hers, surprise registering in them.

"Sully didn't leave me then. He came to see me when I came home, not long after we... fought. I wasn't going to give him what he wanted and now I can't ever so I decided it would be best if we didn't see each other anymore. It was something that was happening before the accident, it was just exacerbated by my hospitalisation."

Booth read the subtext under her words.

"What do you mean give him what he wanted?"

Brennan sighed. She was hoping he wouldn't pick up on that but he was ever perceptive. She didn't want to lie to him about it; she preferred the truth at all times.

"I was pregnant, Booth." His grief felt as if it would engulf her and she wondered if that was how she was supposed to feel, instead of just feeling empty.

_xXx xXx xXx_

_Would she go back to work that soon? My best friend broke her pelvis falling off a horse (serious ouch on her part, I had to listen to her bitching about it on the phone for weeks) but I can't remember how many weeks the recovery took. Judging by my phone bill, it was a while. But she did start riding again before the doctor recommended and it didn't feel like she had a three month hiatus. She had none of the other injuries either, except some shoulder strain I think. Whatever. I'm on a roll with inconsistencies, probably. Case in point: "Statistically more people have car accidents than plane, train and tractor accidents combined." Now I'm really making shit up. I'm just going to go with it. Please ignore your reality and substitute my own (anyone else watch Mythbusters? I want that T-Shirt)._

_And I know, another mini-cliffhanger but it was attached to an extra-long chapter. And no one's dying this time... right? Next chapter up very soon, reviews don't make it happen any sooner but I do like them._

_Plus this was actually a damn hard chapter to write. What would they say to each other in this situation? How would they react? I still haven't felt the show has really kept their characters the same as they were through seasons one and two (season two being the best season out of the lot IMHO, although there have been some stellar episodes later – albeit few and far between) so trying to find some way to make them match what I feel the characters really are was tricky. Let me know if you thought it was too OOC._

_Sufjan Stevens' new album 'The Age of Adz' was on constant repeat while I was writing this chapter, particularly 'Impossible Soul' which is an impressive 25 minutes long. _

"_Woman, tell me what you want and I'll calm down without bleeding out with a broken heart that you stamped for an hour._

_Woman, I was freaking out because I want you to know my beloved you are the lover of my impossible soul._

_Woman, too, promise me that you'll stay and put off all your walls. I was wiggin' out, too much worry I could not get you alone."_

_If you haven't listened – please, find it, listen. It doesn't quite match his Chicago or Illinois albums but it's definitely some amazing indie music._


	10. Chapter 10

Booth had caught her when he saw her trying to stand up in her own house. She was graceful even when falling, when trying to save herself with half-knitted bones that were still healing.

Then she was in his arms and he was trying to hold her somewhere that wouldn't give her pain. She was uncomfortable against his ribs but he welcomed the ache. It was a distraction from the healing scars up her side, the shiny red blemishes on otherwise flawless skin that had set this whole imperfect set of events in action.

He couldn't help but gasp when he saw them. The doctor had told him she had grazes and some cuts on her side but he always left the room when they were redressed to give her some dignity. He hadn't known the cuts would look that deep, the grazes that painful. It looked like bad carpet burn, something that, Booth knew, could hurt more than a gunshot.

Then it was as if a dam broke and he was crying, unable to stop, unable to let her go without having to face her, admit the guilt he had been keeping so firmly in check. To her credit she curled closer to him, moved his head to rest on his shoulder. He just wished he could burden her with all his weight, without worrying about rebreaking any of her healing fractures.

"Booth?" Her voice was soft, almost indignant, causing him to start stemming the anguish that had burst, of its own accord, free.

"Booth, what's wrong?" Her hand was on his neck, cool and calming.

"I'm..." He took a deep breath, felt the ache in his ribs intensify.

"Are your ribs hurting? Do you want me to look at them?" Her hand skimmed softly over the fabric of his shirt, delicate fingers searching for the pain in him, when the real pain he was feeling was somewhere untouchable. He grabbed her hand, stopped it.

"No, Bones, _I'm_ fine." He knew she wouldn't understand, would never be able to decipher emphasis, no matter how over-the-top it was.

"Then...?" She stretched the word out and he left the silence to linger, simply enjoying being close to her.

"Bones, you." He would have to tell her. He'd tried hiding it but it hadn't worked. Ideally he'd wanted to stay away from her until she had healed completely so he didn't have to see her in pain, didn't have to feel the guilt that grew every time she winced or gasped in pain. But she was a magnet, drawing him towards her at all times.

"I'm fine, Booth." Her words were automatic, useless to him. It's what he had been hearing from her for weeks.

"No, you're not. You keep saying that but you think I don't notice how every little movement brings you pain? How you are so careful standing up and sitting down and why you let the squintern-of-the-week move the camera around whatever skeleton you're examining so you don't have to reach higher than your waist." His voice grew louder as he spoke and he stopped, breathing heavy, ribs pulling on each inhalation.

"I'm still healing, Booth. I will be fine. I just need time."

"Exactly. Time you shouldn't have to take if I didn't... If I had just kept my eyes..." Why was it so hard to tell her this? Why was it so hard to tell her anything? Seeley Booth had looked evil in the eye and invited it to take its best shot, but he couldn't look his partner in the eye and tell her what he was feeling. He was a gambler but there was too much for him to lose from her reaction.

"Wait, Booth, are you... Do you blame yourself for this?" Finally, the penny dropped. And she was the one to say it, to invite an answer rather than make him admit the whole thing. Somehow, that was easier.

"Of course I do!" Again, he was louder than he'd meant to be but it was such a relief to get the words out.

"Booth, it was a dog. A stupid dog that ran onto the road. If you could control the minds of dogs then you'd be doing a far better job than that guy on cable who whispers at them."

"The dog whisperer." His words were automatic, as if part of another conversation. He was actually surprised she'd ever seen the show. Chances were she'd read about it in one of the magazines Angela had brought.

"I know who he is." He was silently begging for her to say something, anything. Even if it was the wrong thing.

"Booth, it wasn't your fault. Not even a little bit. Even if you'd been looking at the road the whole time you still wouldn't have been able to stop in time. I can supply the math if you don't believe me." Here, she paused, but he still couldn't bring himself to speak.

"Booth." As always, she was persistent. He didn't want to look at her, was fearful of the emotion that always displayed so strongly in her clear eyes. Then her hand was at his cheek, forcing his eyes to her. She was so much smaller without her heels on so that he looked down into her eyes. He saw no blame, other than what he projected onto her.

"I don't blame you. And if it makes you feel better, I forgive you. I don't know what else to say. It was an accident! Accidents happen because things go wrong. With all the variables in the universe you can't assume something bad will never happen – actually you should assume it will. Statistically more people have car accidents than plane, train and tractor accidents combined."

"But Sully? He fought with you in the hospital, somewhere you wouldn't be if not for me."

"Don't be stupid, Booth." The disdain in her voice surprised him so much he looked back at her, stopped avoiding her eyes.

"Sully didn't leave me then. He came to see me when I came home, not long after we... fought. I wasn't going to give him what he wanted and now I can't ever so I decided it would be best if we didn't see each other anymore. It was something that was happening before the accident, it was just exacerbated by my hospitalisation." What was she talking about? Bones never talked in riddles or used metaphors to hide her meaning. But for once he didn't understand her – and all her words, even the ones with more than four syllables, he could find in his own vocabulary.

"What do you mean give him what he wanted?"

Her sigh was a prelude, but it wasn't a sad sigh, just a resigned one – he knew this was something she didn't want to have to tell him. But Bones was direct and truthful to the point of fallacy. And until she spoke he thought it was something he would want to know. "I was pregnant, Booth."

He couldn't process it all at once. When she'd spoken of family and laid a hand across her stomach; the last time he'd seen her whole and well before that goddamn dog. It was because she'd been carrying a life, a child. Her past tense and slim stomach told him she wasn't anymore and he wasn't surprised; she'd barely survived the crash, how could a still-developing baby have come through it unharmed?

He thought back over her last words, his repeated ones, still avoiding her eyes. She wasn't going to give Sully what he wanted?

"I was never going to keep the baby, Booth." It was as if she'd read his mind or, more likely, she'd calculated the speed of the neurons and synapses firing in his brain to be able to know exactly where his thoughts were.

"We'd been discussing it and I wasn't listening to him. I'd already made the decision, but he... He told me he wanted it, asked me to reconsider." Bones shook her head lightly. "I wouldn't. I was going to get an..." She trailed off and Booth knew it made her uncomfortable, her awareness of his faith and all it entailed. Then she cleared her throat, continued.

"At the accident scene they asked me if I was pregnant and I said nothing. I let them give me drugs that I knew would make me miscarriage. And that, Booth, is not your fault. It was going to happen anyway. It just happened sooner." Her tone was too matter of fact and again he looked into her eyes, as always marvelling at the colour; not quite grey, not quite green, not quite blue.

She didn't look like she was hiding anything, any great sadness. Only slight pain and he realised her captured left hand that he was holding so tightly was pulling on her shoulder blade and the right hand she'd rested against his face had to be hurting from its prolonged time in one position.

Gently he moved her arms back to her side and led her to the couch where she sat, moving until her pelvis was comfortable. She was the unbreakable Dr Temperance Brennan, but she had broken. He'd seen cracks appearing before. Watching her lover bring up old memories in front of a jury and judge simply to win a case. Rescuing her from his old partner who was ready to scar her with a pocket knife and feed her to Rottweilers. Arresting the man she was starting to trust, to form a relationship with, because he was a murderer. Standing with her while she'd watched her father and her brother leave, again.

But these were all emotional pains – her current situation was almost entirely physical. He'd just equated the physical to the emotional; to how he felt every time he saw her move, saw her hurt.

"Booth, say something." Always demanding, her finger was tapping his wrist, impatient.

"Uh..." He wasn't sure how to start, how to tell her this was a guilt he would carry to his grave for her, even if she didn't want him to. Then more of her words occurred to him - _and now I can't ever_. What the hell did that mean?

"What do you mean you can't ever?" Her eyes widened and again he could see it was something she didn't want to say, something he knew he wouldn't want to hear again. But he needed it all out, needed there to be no secrets between them.

"Because of the trauma, the doctor said it's very possible I won't ever be able to conceive." Again, she was too matter of fact and Booth unreasonably hated her for her rationality. But he did note the way her eyes slid away from his as she answered.

"The fact that I was even pregnant wasn't your fault – do you blame Sully for that? And a dog crossing the road wasn't your fault either – but do you blame the dog? What about the car or the truck that stopped? Do you blame the drivers?" She let the silence stretch again.

"If I was driving, Booth, the same thing would have happened." Booth knew this, at least, was one point she was very wrong about. If she was driving, he would have been the one trapped in the car, the one with multiple injuries, the one who had been listed critical when they got to the hospital. Why didn't he ever let her drive?

Booth stood and paced, still trying to let all the information she'd given him process. He could see she was itching to get up as well; she hated talking to him from a seated position when he was standing.

"There can't always be someone or something accountable, Booth. Sometimes things just happen." She sounded wiser than him now, older. He knew how much more death she had seen; the mass graves, the torture inflicted on war prisoners, the injustice she was forced to witness, years after the fact, to return loved ones to their families. If she held onto all that as he did... He wasn't sure what kind of person she would be.

"The only reason I told you all this is because there shouldn't be secrets between us. I didn't want to tell you. I didn't want it to change anything but it has. You're angry at me." Booth rounded on her, had to control his voice so he wasn't yelling.

"I'm not angry at you." Still, the words were snapped and he saw her recoil.

"Then..?" She spread her hands in a _what the hell?_ gesture, awkward because of the way her wrist still couldn't bend.

"I've got to... I need to think about it." Booth needed to get out of her apartment, away from her eyes that he wished were censuring him, not absolving him. He needed to think it all through at his own pace, not at the lightning-quick rate she expected. She was making too much sense, making him want to believe it wasn't his fault. But he needed to decide that himself.

He didn't want to leave her but he had to, had to get some perspective on how much worse what had happened was. A life had been lost, and the ability to give life. Why didn't she care as much about it as him? Should he care enough for the both of them or follow her lead?

Booth sighed once, avoided her eyes again as he left. He closed the door quietly in her familiar hallway and started down the stairs. He was running away right now and he knew it but sometimes there were moments in your life when bravery was impossible.

_xXx xXx xXx_

Brennan still wasn't quite sure what had happened so she gave herself a moment on the couch before pushing herself awkwardly to her feet. Booth had been angry, that she knew. He always held his shoulders in the same way when he was angry and his neck tensed when he was trying to hide it.

But she wasn't sure why he was so angry. She'd told him it wasn't his fault. She'd forgiven him, too, trying to make sure she had all responses covered. Why couldn't he accept that? What else did he want from her? She certainly couldn't make time go backwards so she could make them take a different road on the day of the accident, as much as she might want to deny physics to get that outcome.

The Vietnamese was still in the kitchen, across an expanse of glass strewn floor. Brennan looked down at the glass then went to the hall cupboard. She returned with boots and pulled them on, unwilling to clean the glass up tonight. It would still be there tomorrow. Kicking through it she retrieved the food and got chopsticks out of her top drawer. She reopened the drawer and dug out a knife and fork for Booth. Just in case he came back, she'd leave him some food and have it ready for him to eat.

_xXx xXx xXx_

_FIRSTLY: This fic is on a little hiatus while its creator is overseas. Around three weeks is the planned down time. Sorry, y'all, but this isn't an abandonment, just a break._

_Yes, it's the same scene again. But I really wanted to show this from both Booth and Brennan's points of view since they do have incredibly different viewpoints. Sorry if it seemed like a repeat but the only things I kept the same were the words._

_While I like Brennan more, I find Booth much easier to write. Probably because I'm not so science-y or rational. Hopefully it fit into what you think of him too._

_This chapter was written to several tunes, including Gotye's new track 'Eyes Wide Open'. If you haven't checked him out, please do. His 'Like Drawing Blood' album is absolutely incredible, particularly the song 'Heart's A Mess.' It's pure muse for any fic writer. I've been planning to set a Bones fic around it but... Yep, I'm lazy. Here are some of the lyrics:_

"_Pick apart the pieces of your heart. Let me peer inside._

_Let me in where only your thoughts have been. Let me occupy your mind... As you do mine."_

_And_

"_Your heart's a mess. You won't admit to it. It makes no sense but I'm desperate to connect. And you... you can't live like this."_

_Right? Is that not Booth to Bones? And it's all set to an incredibly chilled beat with some orchestral strings and other blips and beats thrown in for good measure. Absolutely amazing. Please, do yourself a favour and find it. And come back to check for the fic I'll eventually be writing for it... Or tackle your own._

_And after you do come back and let me know what you think about the song (yes, there's the obvious leave-reviews-please plug) tweet/blog/FB your opinion to the world because he's an incredibly talented dude and needs more fans. And he's on twitter if you want to follow - gotye. Oh and, shameless plug, so am I - jambled._

_Oh, and finally, I've hit a bit of a dead end here... How do I end this? This, right now, is where planning would come in handy. Damnit. Suggestions are more than welcome._


End file.
